Variety is the Spice of Life

I've really been enjoying the frozen entrees! It's been a long time since I had them and it's been nice to switch it up a bit. I also find that the shelf stable items definitely require more "doctoring", whereas I can pretty much just heat and eat the frozen food with maybe just a little bit of spices and some vegetables.

I wouldn't give up the shelf stable food, though. I love that I can be so creative with them and make a boring dish into something awesome. It's fun. Kinda like cooking but you know that you're already dealing with a healthy calorie count and macros, plus it saves time!

Here's what I've been eating lately:

Cherry Cheese Roll (Frozen Breakfast):

OMG... well, this one definitely lives up to the hype! It does NOT taste like diet food. While I wish there were maybe some actual cherries in there instead of just the cherry taste (I'm considering adding a little sugarfree cherry pie filling to the plate next time, which would count as an extra), it was absolutely amazing. I could see myself ordering these even after I finish with the Nutrisystem program. When the a la carte sale is 50% off, these entrees are quite reasonably priced, especially if you get free shipping and also get the deal by purchasing Costco gift cards for Nutrisystem. Right now they are on sale, $55 gets you a $100 gift card. So that's another 45% savings on top of it!

Macaroni & Cheese (Frozen Dinner):

I used to love the dinner shelf stable orange macaroni and cheese. It tasted just like the Kraft dinner cups. It's a shame it's been discontinued but I guess I see the point that now there is a lunch macaroni, even if it's white cheese, and the frozen dinner ones, that there's saturation in the macaroni market!

I do like that there's lots of sauce, so when I poured it over my broccoli there was enough to go around. I did find the sauce a bit bland, and I think next time I'll add black pepper and garlic and maybe a little hot sauce to give it a bit of a kick.

One of my favourite meals used to be ham with a side of cheese scalloped potatoes, and this was definitely a reasonable substitute for that. I saved a PF from my afternoon snack to add a slice of ham to my dinner. Fortunately, hams are nice lean proteins that are low in fat, so you can have a reasonably sized serving for your 80-120 calories! I had 4oz with my dinner and it was delicious with a little honey mustard squirted on top (extra).